Public Housing Building in Paris to be Heated by Metro System

The warmth generated by human bodies in the Parisian metro will help heat a public housing project in the city center, the capital’s largest owner of social housing said Friday. The building, located near the Pompidou museum, is being renovated in an environmentally friendly way, due to it’s connection to the metro through a stairway. Francois Wachnick from Paris Habitat states that had there not been a way to directly capture the heat from the metro, such as the staircase, the project would have been impossible.

The calories emitted by passengers, around 100 watts per person, combined with the heat from trains moving along tracks and the underground location of the metro mean that corridor temperatures are 14-20 degrees Celsius all year around. The geothermal based project, aims to draw heat from subterranean passages and move it to heat exchangers before supplying heating pipes. The system will complement district heating. The project should slash carbon dioxide emissions by a third compared to using a boiler room connected to district heating, Wachnick said. The project is expected to heat 17 apartments and is expected to start in 2011.